Nathan Shumate Talks To Suite 101.com
An Interview With The Editor Of Online Journal Arkham Tales
Nov 26, 2008
Editor of Arkham Tales, Nathan Shumate, recently answered a few questions in between his hectic schedule.
Tell us a bit about your publishing background—how long have you been involved in writing and editing?
Unfortunately, the cliched answer is also the honest one: I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I’ve done the standard smattering of formats – short fiction, screenplays, comic book scripts, the requisite unfinished novel – but the majority of my output has been in the form of movie reviews for the last ten years at coldfusionvideo.com
My qualifications as an editor, beyond a degree in English Lit which supposedly enabled me to identify and appreciate “real” literature, are a good eye for proofreading, and a damned high critical standard. About 60% of the books I start reading are ditched for not being good enough, according to me. So I decided to put this critical facility to good use.
What about genre fiction appeals to you, both as a writer and a reader?
The best of genre fiction plays with “variations on a theme,” drawing on a common pool of tropes established by predecessors in the genre while adding enough novelty that it’s not a simple rehash. Some genres tilt more toward one end or the other of the spectrum; SF works better with more emphasis on variation and originality, while romance or westerns stay more tightly within the bounds set by traditions. I think horror and “weird fiction” find a perfect balance because of the nature of fear; we’re all scared or unsettled by one or more of a set number of archetypal dangers, but if we’re exposed to the same danger over and over it loses its ability to frighten us. So horror stories have to reference the archetypal fears in novel ways or they simply don’t work.
How did you get the idea for Arkham Tales?
When I was an undergraduate a decade and a half ago, I was caught up in the romance of the small press publisher. At the time, I couldn’t figure out how to make such a magazine self-sustaining (I knew even then not to think in terms of profitability). Even getting the word out about the magazine’s existence was daunting! So I put the idea at the bottom of the stack of “things to get around to if I live that long.” By the time it reshuffled to the top, there was this whole “internet” thingie that took the physical mechanics of distribution over distance out of the equation.
Why the decision to launch the magazine in pdf format as opposed to print?
It was entirely a decision of economics. I realized that if I didn’t have to figure printing costs or shipping into the equation, a magazine could theoretically be rendered self-supporting by advertising revenues alone, without a cover price. Especially in the internet age, readers are averse to paying for “content” (a term that didn’t used to describe prose) when there’s so much available for free. On the other hand, I have a hard time bringing myself to read fiction in HTML; the formatting is off, and web is a medium that I’ve trained myself to skim for facts and arguments, not savour as I would a short story in print. I assumed that others would have this same problem, so a PDF file seemed like the perfect compromise: no physical production costs, but a control over format that mimicked print and more closely mirrored the effect of reading a good fiction magazine or anthology instead of a blog.
Nathan Shumate Interview Part Two HERE
